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Potted Veal

A stew of veal, ham, onion, carrot, herbs, mace, peppercorns, bacon, and broth, simmered slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Potted Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into pieces and place in a stewpan.

  2. Add the ham, onion, carrot, herb bundle, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Layer with fat bacon and moisten with broth.

Cook

  1. Cover with buttered paper and simmer on low heat for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Remove the paper and let cool before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour that seasons the meat and broth as it cooks.
Fat bacon
Lays fat over the meat, adding richness and moisture as it renders during cooking.
Broth
Moistens the meat and carries flavour, keeping it from drying out during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer on low heat. Gentle simmering keeps the meat tender and prevents the proteins from toughening. A rolling boil would tighten the fibres and make the veal dry and stringy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, clove, carrot):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, clove, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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